We are in West Lafayette for the night. Lise had a work-related trip down here so we decided to make a road trip out of it. From here we go to St Louis for a couple days to see baby Ava. We want to see Stefan and Kasey too, but they’re not cute little babies that are growing fast. Baby Ava is.
I’ve been having a hard time getting blog posts up. Partly a time issue. I was asked to help someone with the MSU course he is teaching. So, I’ve done a couple classes for him, as well as the two classes I teach at LCC. I’ve also been doing GIS work for some civil engineers, helping with a non-profit land conservancy, trying to work out on a regular basis, playing a wee bit in the workshop, and working on the house. Nothing particularly exciting.
There’s some element on writer’s block involved too. I’m just having a hard time getting an interesting story from the rather mundane things eating up our time lately. A good photographer can take a great photo of a mundane subject. A good writer should be able to make a mundane subject interesting. I just can’t see how to make painting a bedroom interesting. Especially when you use the bland, make the house saleable, neutral colors we’re using. Tiger striped walls would be interesting. “Autumn Dawn” is not.
Things are happening in the natural world. Up in Michigan we’ve made the transition to oncoming winter. A couple day’s ago there was still the hope of an afternoon warm enough to enjoy outside gin and tonic while letting the lizard romp in the yard. The lizard still wants to go outside but sitting in 45-degree temperatures just isn’t gin and tonic weather. Gin and tonics are made for lazy warm afternoons. Might be time t switch to hot buttered rum.
Along with the changing seasons comes changing wildlife. The summer residents have migrated out and yesterday we saw our first junco of the season at our feeders. Raptor migration is in full swing. The Detroit River hawk watch has been getting daily counts of migrating raptors in the 5,000 range. Yesterday we had an immature Cooper’s hawk sitting on our back porch, terrorizing the local feeder birds. I’m pretty sure this guy was just passing through. The resident hawks know the better places to nail a meal.
Cooper’s hawk scoping out our feeders. Lise cell phone picture.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 